Time and distance.
Those are the most meaningful measurements at the Penn Relays. Those are the key calculations for the officials in their hats and blazers in the stands just above the finish line in Franklin Field.
How quickly can this sprinter cover 100 meters? Or that runner cover 1,600 meters? Or this relay team cover the four fractured legs of the distance medley?
But time and distance have other implications at the world's oldest, largest and most spectacular relay carnival.
Take the men from Brigham Young University.
One notable figure for them is 1,919 miles. That's the distance from their campus in Provo, Utah to Philadelphia.
Another is 94 years. That's the time lapse since the last BYU male athlete won a championship event at the Penn Relays, as the Cougars' Clint Larsen won the high jump in 1917 with a leap of 6 feet, 5¾ inches.
"Oh, my goodness – my memory's a little hazy about the 1917 event," BYU coach Ed Eyestone joked this week.
Eyestone is bringing the BYU men to the Penn Relays this weekend for the first time in memory. Led by NCAA indoor mile champion Miles Batty, the Cougars won the distance medley at the indoor championships and will be among the favorites in that signature event on Friday afternoon.
That's one of the best things about the Penn Relays, the way it attracts old favorites and prodigal programs. The grand event opens its arms to regulars such as the Louisiana State women and newcomers such as the BYU men.
All are welcomed. All are encouraged to join the organized chaos in the pens and soak up the atmosphere on 32d Street - think Wildwood boardwalk crossed with sports festival crossed with Jamaican village - and strut their stuff on the track along with Olympic development studs and high school stars, 80-year-old sprinters and elementary-school athletes.
"I understand it's a bit of a three-ring circus," Eyestone said.
Eyestone is a West Coast guy. He's never been to the Penn Relays, and most of his athletes have never been here, either.
But they've heard about it. Everybody in track and field has heard about the Penn Relays - the scene, the sights, the sound when anchor runners make that turn inside the old brick wall and race for home.
"My East Coast buddies, they give nothing but rave reviews," Eyestone said. "I've heard amazing things about it."
Time and distance.
Here's another example of the Relays' remarkable reach: When LSU re-did its track offices in Baton Rouge, La. - which is 1,277 miles from Philadelphia - the coaches made sure that one wall of the renovated lobby was dedicated to the incredible success of the women's program at Franklin Field.
LSU has won more Championship of America races in women's events than any other program with 47. For the Tigers, the key figures are the sliced down to hundreds of seconds, like the time of 42.59 seconds they ran in setting Penn Relays and Franklin Field records in the 4x100-relay in 2008.
"When you walk in [the lobby of the renovated office complex], it's one of the first things you see, the tradition we've established at the Penn Relays," LSU men's and women's coach Dennis Shaver said. "It means an awful lot to us. It means an awful lot to our student-athletes because they see that wall every day."
Time and distance.
LSU's women have been running circles around the competition for so many years that an event more than 1,200 miles from their campus seems like a home meet. BYU's men hope to grab gold 94 years after an athlete who was born in the 19th century captured the program's last Penn Relays championship.
That's how it works at the Penn Relays. One minute you're struck by a colorful blur of a race decided by hundreds of a second, and the next by a program whose triumphant return was nearly a hundred years in the making.